In 2531, Red Team was under the leadership of Jerome-092. The team was a three-person unit, comprised of Jerome, Douglas-042 and Alice-130. Red Team participated in the Battle of Arcadia, where they assisted forces from the UNSC Spirit of Fire to evacuate Arcadian civilians and to destroy a Covenant excavation operation at a complex of Forerunner ruins. After Covenant forces had been driven from Arcadia, Jerome, Douglas, and Alice remained with the ship's forces. After the Spirit of Fire's crew managed to destroy a Forerunner Shield World in order to destroy a fleet of Forerunner ships which the Covenant planned to reverse-engineer and use to swiftly destroy humanity, the three SPARTANs were presumed missing in action with the rest of the ship's crew. Ultimately, command of Red Team was then passed to Frederic-104.

On August 23rd, 2552, Red Team was deployed to defend civilian evacuation operations on Reach.[1] By August 30th, they had been assigned to the UNSC Pillar of Autumn to participate in Operation: RED FLAG. However, before the Autumn could exit the system and initiate the mission, all UNSC ships were recalled to defend Reach. Red Team was deployed to the surface of Reach to defend the generators that powered the planet's twenty Orbital Defense Platforms.

Though they inflicted heavy damage on the Covenant, including destroying a Covenant cruiser and a military base set up to secure the ground, many members of Red Team were killed during their insertion and in the engagements that followed.

In Halo Wars, Red Team has a regenerating shield bar, in addition to a health bar. The regenerating shield bar recharges after a short time and makes the classic depletion and recharge sounds from the original trilogy. All three Spartans count as Hero Units; if their health is depleted, instead of dying, they are "downed", at which point their health bar begins to regenerate. Once the health bar is at least half full, the downed Spartan can be revived by touching them with any other unit under your control. The Spartans are capable of hijacking enemy vehicles and commandeering friendly vehicles, similar to John-117 in the original trilogy, but at a much slower rate. Additionally, there is a neural implant upgrade that can be obtained, which gives Spartans the power to hi-jack vehicles much more effectively. Because Spartans are more effective than standard soldiers with the same equipment, any vehicle driven by a Spartan receives a stat boost compared to standard vehicles of the same type. Spartans cannot be damaged by FloodInfection Forms while their shields are intact, but as Hero units, they are immune to being Infected anyway.

"Red Team" is not actually usable outside of the Halo Wars campaign, although the player can train and field up to three anonymous Spartans at a time in Skirmish mode or in Multiplayer. Unlike Red Team, these anonymous Spartans can be killed when their health is depleted, but more Spartans can be trained back up to the limit of three. In the campaign, Jerome carries a Spartan Laser, Alice wields a machine gun turret, and Douglas uses a homing Rocket launcher. The chain gun and the Spartan Laser are available as Spartan weapon upgrades (one and two steps up from dual SMGs, respectively) but Douglas' rocket launcher is a unique weapon.[2]